When I mention the word fries, the cultural wall is broken and she laughs knowingly.

Advertisement

Kizart is prone to wild paroxysms of laughter. Her voice, a "gift from God", as she calls it, is a responsibility she bears with a contrary mix of earnestness and effervescent lightness.

In Sydney for her Opera Australia debut, she is reprising the role of Tosca, a part that marked her first professional performance.

"This particular version is not like anything you've probably seen before," the young soprano promises of Puccini's reworked tragedy.

"It's one of those pieces that reaches out and grabs you by the neck and will not let you go."

As the grandniece of blues legend Muddy Waters and Tina Turner, any mention of her musical pedigree is regarded perfunctorily.

"When you're dealing with people who are family, it's just family," Kizart says. "[Muddy's] songs were very raunchy. When I was little I wanted to be Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey just like everyone else."

Having sung since the age of two, Kizart took a detour into opera at 13 when a music teacher began coaching her in classical music. A 2008 graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, she credits the vision of director Christopher Alden for luring her to our shores.

Set in modern-day Italy in the basement of a church vestry, Alden's production examines the controversial regime of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, with Scarpia representing his "right-hand henchman". Torture, murder, rape and betrayal, all the melodramatic themes of Tosca, remain and rising above it is its story of enduring love.

"This is one of my favourite lines: 'And then when all of this is over I will close your eyes with a thousand kisses and with a thousand different names of love I will call you.' Isn't that amazing, that after the turmoil she still focuses on the fact that the love was worth it?" Kizart says.

Asked whether she agrees with Tosca's choices, Kizart breaks into her signature laugh.

"I just thank God that I am none of these people," she says.

"If I were in a significant relationship with someone, I would hope that I would want to save him in any way possible. But I don't know if I could give myself , body and soul, to someone for my lover."

Of the singers she most admires, Kizart cites Ella Fitzgerald and Maria Callas but she is strongly critical of copycat artists who she believes have vandalised the operatic form.

"One of my pet peeves is when we don't respect the art form," she says. "I really hate it when people sing R&B songs with an operatic voice.

"Ella Fitzgerald was singing classics in her jazzy voice. She wasn't trying to be operatic.

"I love Maria Callas and what she was able to do. You open a score and she does everything that's on the page and not only that, she infuses it with her own artistic merit."

Kizart, who has kept a "vision list" for four years, has added yet another goal: legendary artist.

"I want to make sure that everything, or at least everything

Loading

I strive to do, is better and better. Martin Luther King once said something along the lines of, 'If you're going to sweep the streets, be the best street sweeper you can be."'

Opera Australia's Tosca opens on January 8 and runs until March 27 at the Sydney Opera House.